View full sizeEric Mortenson/The OregonianEven kids - in this case the son of an OSU researcher - care about the fate of bees.

While colony collapse disorder and the nationwide decline of honeybees have been well reported and documented, other researchers have zeroed in on the fate of another important pollinator -- bumble bees.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that the common western bumble bee -- Bombus occidentalis, to get Latin on you -- is in trouble as well. Entomologist James Strange, with the USDA in Logan, Utah, reports the range and abundance of the bumble bee has declined over the past 20 years.

In October 2006, beekeepers nationwide began to report hive losses
of 30 to 90 percent. It's not unusual to lose 10 percent of hives in
winter, but this was a baffling shutdown. Researchers labeled it "Colony Collapse Disorder." Oregon State University hired researcher Ramesh Sagili to help find an answer. I wrote about him in 2010.